scott gurvey reports. >> reporter: the dollar goes down. gold goes up. its a standard rule of investing. but how does that explain corn and copper? crude and palladium? and even eggs. there actually are connections. start with the fed, buying securities to stimulate the economy. that lowers the value of the dollar, increasing the cost of commodities priced in dollars. it increases demand as well, as foreigners flock to buy cheap u.s. exports, especially of corns and beans. that's not good when poor weather is leading to smaller harvests. and you may recall the egg recall. you need palladium and other metals to refine oil. and corn made into ethanol improves fuel efficiency. commodity expert george gero says wall street is also playing a part in the commodity rally. >> now we have all these perfect storms coming together. and asset allocation has become a new word on wall street in the last two years. and then you've had the advent of all these e.t.f.s, exchange traded funds. >> reporter: e.t.f.s have changed the investing equation. now endowment funds, p

scott gurvey reports. >> reporter: nymex crude hit a 25-month high in electronic trading early today, then retreated to settle unchanged. but while traders may have decided to lock in some short term gains, experts say the recent oil price gusher is for real. chinese demand is a big reason. the chinese government today reported refineries in that country processed a record volume of oil in october. the chinese thirst for oil has been growing along with its economy. but oil trader ray carbone says there's more to the story than china. >> we have seen china be a big part of the rally back from the lows of march of 2009. but what were seeing now, which has spurred oil to these two year highs, is really some very good numbers coming out of the u.s., some demand strength that we haven't seen, and some eating away of that overhang of inventory. >> reporter: that domestic demand indicates an increase in industrial activity, in spite of the sluggish economy. but energy analyst stephen gengaro says not all components of the energy sector are participating in the rally. >> our internal team has

our tech guru scott gurvey takes the latest microsoft phone for a test drive. >> reporter: it is hard to believe microsoft released its first smart phone nearly 10 years ago. before the apple iphone. before the google android. and about the same time as rim's blackberry. hard to believe because microsoft has never been seen as a major player in phones. that may change with windows mobile 7. we've been testing a windows phone made by samsung and comparing it with an iphone and a droid. it has a slick feel, a beautiful bright touch screen and unique tiled interface. the tiles convey information, like how many messages are waiting. touch the "people" tile, and you'll find your contacts and facebook friends in one place. but, strangely, no twitter. email sets up easily, especially for exchange server mailboxes. that's a big selling point for business. you can edit and share microsoft office documents, but you can't cut and paste. the phone has a great camera and a decent web browser. but it does not support flash or html5, which will limit video in this release. voice quality is on par wi

scott gurvey was in times square today and got an early preview of the kinect. >> reporter: they have been camped outside the times square toys 'r' us for days, even though microsoft's kinect doesn't go on sale until midnight. kinect is a $150 add-on for the popular xbox game console. you could call it a non- controller, with no buttons and nothing to hold. >> what's cool about it is you get to pick these games, and you don't even need a controller. just you. >> reporter: in fact, that's the tag line: you are the controller. kinect is 3d sensors, cameras, microphones and sophisticated software. microsoft's don mattrick calls it a game changer. >> we're having the computer, the sensors learn about you as a human. it's building on things that you and i do naturally. the sense of identity. the ability to use voice to control things. the ability to use gestures. all of those are important shifts in computing, and i think its going to expand the market. and it really resonates with consumers. >> reporter: the early buzz for kinect has been good. a consumer hit for microsoft could give a ki